Theory
by LJ Summers
Summary: Originally written for TwiFicPics' "Talk Nerdy to me Challenge," this is a story about how Geeky Edward meets stunning Physics TA Ms. Swan and, well, talks nerdy to her. She's different, though, and he has theories about why. Edward/Bella AU
1. Killing Schrödinger's Cat

With my thanks to **VampsHaveLaws** for her wonderfully inspirational banner that was entered in the "Talk Nerdy to Me Challenge" at TwiFicPics and to **JandCo**, for her ideas about this Geekward.

This was originally posted as a drabble (Quantum Theory in my Twilight Rambles collection) but I had an idea to expand a wee bit on it.

_**Disclaimer**__: This is a work of derivative fiction. I claim no rights to this fic in any of its parts. All things Twilight are the intellectual property of Stephenie Meyer and/or her assignees. Me, I just like rearranging canon. A lot._

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><p><strong>Chapter One: Killing Schrödinger's Cat<strong>

"You have lovely hands," Professor Volturi murmured as he stared, seemingly transfixed, at my fingers on the piano keys.

Inwardly, I shrugged. I wasn't seeking his admiration, just his attention. He had a tendency, Music Department rumors whispered, to enjoy mentoring the _pretty boys_ most of all. Professor Volturi was a legend in his own way. He was a master composer who also had key performances to his credit, including command performances for Queen Elizabeth II and multiple appearances for two different Presidents of the United States and three Prime Ministers of Canada, in addition to cable specials. It had been quite a coup, I understood, to be accepted by Professor Volturi.

Especially since I was a far cry from a _pretty boy_.

I finished the piece for my music mentor and waited while he sighed and reverently touched the keys nearest my left hand – almost as if he wanted to touch my fingers, but not quite. I felt creeped-out as his nearly black eyes traveled up my arm to my bony-but broad-shoulders. When he reached my face, I kept my expression impassive.

"Lovely hands," he said again, sounding regretful. "And you're quite talented, Mr. Cullen. Here, at the end of your sophomore year. Yes. What is it that you would like to do with your talent? How can we further direct your course load for the remainder of your degree?"

"I have a back-up in Physics," I told him proudly. Math and music were highly compatible. "But I was thinking I could..." Memories of concerts with my parents when I was a child swirled through my head. "Hoping I could play. In concert."

"Ah," he said, sighing out the syllable. Raising his brows into his pale forehead, he looked me dead in the eye. "You have lovely hands, Mr. Cullen. And if you wished, I could introduce you to the right people. I could. But..." Moving away, he eyed me up and down. No longer fawning, he was evaluating. I felt my muscles tense in response. "You have talent. You do. I'm just not sure if your...aesthetic...will show," he admitted slowly.

"Oh, your bone structure's good," my sister Rose had told me just over Spring Break. She was into technical photography. "And I'd kill to have your eyes." We both had green eyes, but hers were a murky, mossy shade while mine were a brighter color. I was often asked if I wore contact lenses. "We can at least get your hair tamed," she offered, trying to be positive and upbeat just before I had my senior portrait done in high school – years ago.

I let her do what she wanted. Rose and I were all that was left of our family, so I let her mother me sometimes. "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," I had to constantly remind her. My sister Rose was the _ultimate_ in silk purses, really. If I wasn't her brother, I'd totally want to date her. But I am, so...no. She doesn't have a lot of dates, though; she scares the hell out of everyone. Her hair was Rumpelstiltskin. Well, I called it that when I was a kid. It was the kind of blond that looks like gold, not like hair. She had modeled a few times, but preferred being behind the camera. Still, I kept a scrapbook of her photo spreads. She called me a geek. I told her someone had to keep the pictures for her future progeny.

I rocked the sow's ear look, myself. At twenty-one, there was some statistical probability that I would add an inch to the six-two I carried in height, but nothing could fix the slightly crooked teeth, the skin problems, or the fact that, apart from my hands, I had all the coordination of lime Jell-O in the August sun. "Good thing you've got brains," my sister said on more than one occasion.

I guessed Professor Volturi thought so, too.

With a nod, I thanked him for his opinion, left the acoustically proven practice room, and changed my major. I could keep the minor in music, but I'd major in Physics for the remainder of my college career.

Physics was more practical, anyway.

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><p>"Now I know," Ms. Swan, Dr. McCarty's teaching assistant, said while crossing her legs – Damn! She had legs that went on for freaking days! – as she sat on the stool behind the lectern, "that you are all very smart. I know this. But <em>you <em>need to know that _I_ am _obsessed_ with detail. I will read every single notation on every single graph and lab report you turn in to me. It's my job, and I am very good at my job."

Well, hell. She threw down a gauntlet and those of us in her section of Physics 319 had to take it up.

Most of us in the class were guys. When Ms. Swan said she was very good at her job, the focus in the room heightened. As if pheromones poured from all of us into some kind of fluid force that extended to her. It was eerie.

"The TA is sporting some serious T _and_ A," one of the guys said. In the hall. _After_ class was over. Sexual harassment was serious and no one wanted to get busted for it.

Three others chuckled, but we were all watching as she walked away. She moved so fast, like she had to be somewhere in thirty seconds. Though Ms. Swan was a little under average height, I judged, she was perfect. I wasn't the only one who thought so, either.

"What the hell kind of perfume is she wearing?" T and A guy said. I wasn't good with names.

As one, we all inhaled deeply. And then, I had to smile because we looked so weird. All of us scrunching our foreheads, trying to figure out what a woman smelled like. "Carnations?" I guessed, not being really loud or confident; hell, I was the new guy in the group.

"Maybe," T and A allowed.

We all speculated about her as Fall Quarter continued. The two girls in our section rolled their eyes whenever one of the guys did something to try to get Ms. Swan to notice them. One of the popular gimmicks was to replace the letters in the diagrams with letters to a question for her. Nothing major; none of us wanted to flunk out and have to take this over again. She scanned some of the homework assignments, pointing out that the drag co-efficient derivations, "Did not require apple pie, thank you. Pi will suffice. Points off!" she would state, and someone in the class would swear quietly.

Ms. Swan just arched a brow and smiled before moving on to the next "example."

I never did anything stupid like that. Ms. Swan – Isabella Swan, the class syllabus said – intimidated the hell out of me. She did more than that, though...

I found myself drawn to her.

"Isabella?" Rose asked me one morning. "Who the hell is that?" She leaned against my open door, arms crossed, eyebrow arched as she stared at the obvious morning wood I was sporting.

I felt myself blush. A lot. My ears even got hot. I pulled my sheet from my waist to my chest and bent my knees. "Huh? Isabella?"

"Yeah, you were moaning, brother-dear. Hey, far be it from me to comment on your fantasy life. I was just –"

"Nosey. You were just nosey."

"Hey, I'm all for you having a girlfriend, Genius. But you might want to clean up your room before you have her over, is all I'm sayin'."

"As if that'd ever happen," I muttered, willing the tent under the sheet to just go away. I thought hard about something that would do it. I was now a physics major, not minor, dammit, and had to figure out this basic physical property! "Schrödinger's Cat."

"What the hell? You talkin' about _pussy_, baby bro'?" Yeah, Rose could be a little crude, that way.

I blushed again, but at least thinking about Schrödinger's hypothetical feline got me, er, _presentable_. "Shut. Up. It's a physics thing," I said, trying to sound cool. "You wouldn't understand."

"Whatever. Get up. You've got to get the trash out before school."

I took the trash out and then took a shower. It was the day of the main lecture for 319. I wanted to be in a good seat to observe Ms. Swan. It was as if I couldn't help but zero in on her whenever she was within view.

The lecture hall filled quickly. One good thing about being a major in this field, is that no one gave me any grief for liking math and getting a laugh out of some of the ridiculous t-shirts I saw in stores or online. My sister did, but no one in my classes did. We all liked the same things. It really was a department where I felt more at home.

And if I had known someone like Isabella Swan was in the Physics department? I would have switched my major during my the first term of Freshman year!

I caught a whiff of her perfume before I saw her. She was taking the shallow steps down the hall, having come in through the back door –

_Does she like it in the back door?_ the ever-present horny teenager inside my head wondered. He was the same one that probably pushed the wrong word out before about Schrödinger's cat, before...

I think I must have sighed loudly enough for her to hear me, because she paused and tossed a look over her shoulder, her golden eyes – gold irises were a mutation of the brown shades, I had learned in an early Biology class – alighting on me. Blood rushed to my face and I thought I saw her eyes get darker, but it was probably my imagination. I did not imagine the way she licked her lips and swallowed, though. I was paying way too much attention to her mouth.

Ducking my head, I resolved not to be such an idiot next time I saw her.

I should have known that was a stupid thing to expect of myself.

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><p>A couple of days later, I saw her at the 7-Eleven, picking up some breath mints. She was wearing low-rise jeans and a short t-shirt that had a symbol string on it that translated to "I 8 Sum Pi." But in order to figure that out, someone would have had to <em>stare right at her chest<em> for a few seconds.

Or minutes, if they weren't good at math. Physics students typically were. I wondered if she was physicist enough to get my Schrödinger's Cat shirt. It was sick, but cool in a physics geek kind of way. I got up the nerve to ask her if she knew about superposition. Pulling off my glasses, I tried to smooth out my hair – I hated all that hair stuff my sister Rose made me use – and cleared my throat.

"Uh, Ms. Swan?"

She popped a mint in her mouth and I watched her move it out of the way of her tongue. I was _very_ glad I was wearing a big flannel shirt over my t-shirt. She blinked as if she didn't know who I was. "Yes?"

"I'm Ed - Edward Cullen. I - In your section. For Professor M - McCarty."

She nodded and looked down at her purse and then up at me again and then at my t-shirt and I wanted to hide it because it was my retro Marvel Comics shirt from ComicCon two years ago and she probably thought it was childish. I winced internally, but kept going because, well, she was hot and I thought that leaving then would be the worst thing I could do.

I was wrong. "I, uh, was wondering if you'd get a pussy. Cat. Shirt." _Not again! Crap! _That was _not_ the way that was supposed to come out. "Uh, I meant, you know, uh, the shirt with the cat? Schrödinger's?"

One brow arched. "You want to know if _I_ know about super_position_?" She moistened her lips and I swallowed. Hard. "Or if I play for both teams?"

My face went up on flames, right there in the 7-Eleven. I bailed.

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><p>AN: This is complete on my end...Look for an update soon! :)


	2. Applied Physics

**A/N: So glad y'all are enjoying Nerdward. This story is only four chapters long. It's just a bit of fun. **

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><p><strong>Chapter Two: Applied Physics<strong>

I spent the next three weeks hiding in the back of the lecture hall and the back of the lab room, with a baseball cap over the "impossible hair" my sister said I had. I tried some new stuff to calm down blemishes on my skin – it did do some good, anyway – and found a new deodorant. Because every time I even thought I was going to see Ms. Swan, I broke out in a nervous sweat.

Sometimes, I thought she studied me in class, but when I checked, she wasn't. She seemed to act as if I never even existed. Terrified to try talking to her again, I couldn't even manage to meet her eyes during discussion group. All I could do was hand in work and get it back. At least my scores were good; I didn't have to be a coward _and_ embarrassed.

"Who the hell put a bug up your ass?" Rose asked me while I cooked dinner. Spaghetti was my specialty. "You've been – I don't know. Weird." She was perched on a stool at the breakfast counter, leaning in on her elbows and frowning at me as if I were an out-of-focus eight-by-ten.

I added minced garlic – fresh – to the sauce on the stove. "Define _weird_."

She blew out an impatient breath. "I don't know. You're on edge, kind of. Like you're plotting something or there's a secret." She cocked her brow. "Is there a secret?"

We didn't like secrets. "Not exactly. Not about anything real."

"So you've got an _imaginary_ bug up your ass?"

I laughed, feeling stupid but also kind of happy to be able to talk to her about it. "How about an _impossible_ bug?"

"Is the bug's name _Isabella_?" she asked in a sing-song kind of voice.

My face heated again. "Yeah."

"Thought so."

While I stirred the sauce, adding bay leaves for flavoring, I told her about the Physics TA. About how smart she was, how precise, her pale skin, that gorgeous hair that I could just see wrapped...

"And she smells like flowers," I finished.

"So have you tried talking to her?"

"Uh, yeah." I managed to stammer my way through the _pussy disaster_ at the 7-Eleven. "I was only going to ask about superposition."

Rose was gaping, her eyes bright with glee. "Positions? Like, sex?"

I rolled my eyes. "Is it always about sex with you?"

She tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Until I find the right guy, yeah."

"Ew. No, I don't want to know."

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><p>In the end, I decided that I would get Ms. Swan to notice me by doing what the other guys had done, but doing it better. Making "my aesthetic" more interesting with a good segue.<p>

A segue, in music, is a movement from one song to another without interruption. I thought I could apply that to physics by making the transition from paper to conversation incorporate elements of both to each and maybe...maybe it would work.

So...yeah. I took out _every_ letter in the charts in the next quiz and spelled out a note as I solved the equations.

_Want to talk about the superposition theory?_

I signed my name at the very last graph. _Will she notice me now?_ I wondered, dropping my quiz packet upside down on her desk before I left the room.

Next session, she handed the quizzes back and I almost groaned when I saw my grade.

**Accuracy: B**

**Notations: F**

**Guts: A**+

_**And it's superposition **__**theorem**__**, not theory. **_

_**~I.S.**_

_**P.S. See me after class.**_

I took off my glasses for a second to look up at her. Her smile was more like a smirk, but I knew I would take what I could get. For the rest of the hour, she went over the quiz. I tried to pay attention, but mostly I was, well, _sniffing_ the quiz paper. It had felt rather cool, when she put it down in front of me, and when she walked by, I thought maybe she was carrying ice or something. She had some kind of ambient temperature that intrigued me.

Maybe she had a problem with heat? Like a skin problem. That would explain why she was so pale and secreted ice packs (I was convinced that's what it had to be) in her clothing. And hell, her skin? Sometimes? I wanted to just run my nose along her neck to see if she smelled that good when I was surrounded by her scent.

"Mr. Cullen," she called as the others were leaving when our section was done. "A moment?"

"Busted, man!"

"Good luck, Cullen!"

"Remember the T _and_ the A."

My ears were turning all red, I was sure of it, and my heart was pounding away like crazy as I moved to stand in front of the small lectern. "Uh, yeah?" I wanted to hit myself. Could I have been any more awkward?

"So you wanted to talk about superposition?" she began, her eyes sparkling with good humor. Then, her expression downshifted to rueful. "I am sorry for embarrassing you at the 7-Eleven. I tend to not let hu- _people_ get too close, even when they're sweet and funny," she confessed, stepping a little closer to me and looking up into my eyes.

My stomach dropped and bounced, my heart pounded and my fingers twitched, wanting to touch her, to feel how smooth her skin might be, to find out if her hair was soft as it looked. I wasn't totally inexperienced with women; there had been a girlfriend my freshman year who had been great, but when she transferred to an Ivy League school, we broke up. We had had sex a few times. It was all right; both of us had been virgins, but we figured it out.

Still, standing so close to Ms. Swan? I felt like I was about fifteen and asking a girl out for the first time. "Uh, I had been thinking about Schrödinger's cat, and I saw your shirt and – and, I'm sorry. It came out all wrong." It still did, and that fifteen-year-old kid in my head was mortified.

And horny. I couldn't seem to help it. She didn't help, either, when she lightly brushed my forearm with her fingers. They were chilled, her hands were, tracking goosebumps up my arm. Still, her words caught my notice.

"As applied to physics? The quantum theory of superposition?"

I nodded. "Yeah. The quantum effects are theorized only to affect the smaller structures. Subatomic." I wasn't a grad student, but I had made good use of my first two years of college when Physics was just my minor. Plus, I'd done research.

She moved even closer to me and I felt every muscle in my body tighten against the urge to press her up against the nearest table and grind into her. Her lips parted and I could smell her breath; the same floral scent that always followed her. " The subatomic particles also affect much larger and more complex structures," she said. How the hell could she sound so suggestive while being so technical? The gold in her eyes seemed to darken, and I felt like I could fall into her eyes forever.

"Larger...?"

"Uh-huh." Lids lowering, she whispered, "Want me to show you how much larger?"

The curl to her voice, the whole vibe she was pushing out, screamed sex. Sex for the physics geeks. Dry-mouthed, I nodded. "Oh, yeah." Say no? To someone like her? Hell, it was the twenty-first century and I wasn't going to turn away an intelligent, modern girl.

_Wait, what if you're wrong?_ I wondered, about ready to step back and second-guess myself. Physics. She was a drop-dead gorgeous girl and I was just...not. She should be with someone tall, dark and handsome. More like Dr. McCarty – crap. Were they together? They both had the same perfect model-thing going for them. Maybe...

My mind raced along that completely irrelevant tangent as I froze, poised between moving back and moving forward. Rose would be all for me just kissing the TA, but – but –

She kissed me, instead. Her fingers slid up my arms and her lips were on mine, cool and smooth and glassy in their perfection. I wondered, at first, what kind of makeup she was wearing, but soon I wasn't wondering anything but how the hell she managed to taste even better than she smelled. I moved my arms around her, surprised at how firm she was, but my brain kind of shut down as my _other_ head got all attentive.

Her moan got me even harder. I licked at her lips, and her tongue was on mine, cool and caressing and I wondered briefly about that body-heat thing before I pulled her in closer to _my_ body.

"Wait," she said, turning only slightly as her breath came in a gasp. I heard her swallow. "Wait. Edward. Wait. I'm being stupid. You don't know how dangerous –"

"You're a TA and I'm an undergrad, I get it," I blurted, unable to move away from her. "I, uh, can switch to a different section, or we can –"

She rested her head on my chest and I had this need to surround her, protect her. I nuzzled her head. My eyes rolled back in their sockets as I felt immersed in whatever made her smell so good. She made a low sound that reverberated into my body. "No, I'm not worried about that, Edward." Gripping my shirt, she stared up into my eyes. I was practically mesmerized. "Want to come back to my place and discuss those larger and more complex structures?" Her body grazed the most prominent public hard-on I'd had since middle school. "Is that a yes?"

"Yeah," I managed to rasp.

She drew in a deep breath, winced a little and stepped away. I cringed inwardly – that new deodorant probably wasn't as effective as I could have wished, dammit.

"Okay. Good." She smiled a little. "I need to check in with Emm – with Dr. McCarty – and drop off my report. "Want to follow me or do you trust me to drive?" Her eyes lightened, reminding me of my sister's hair – that kind of bright gold.

_Rose. I should call her and – well, I can call her later, if I wind up being late._

Ms. Swan made a quick phone call and smiled at me. "We can just leave straight from here. I'll catch up with Dr. McCarty later."

"Why me, Ms. Swan?" I heard myself asking as we walked from the building.

She paused and watched the shade dappling the grass. The trees were still thick with green leaves. After a couple of heartbeats, she nodded quickly. "Isabella," she said. "Out here, I'm Isabella," she said softly before she began walking across the shade toward the nearest lot of parked cars.

Isabella. The name my sister said I called in my sleep. Crap. _C'mon, Cullen. You can do this._ But could I? I didn't have any condoms on me. When did I ever need those?

Internally, I panicked, feeling almost desperate. To tell her – this sexy, experienced woman who had asked me – plain, geeky me – back to her place for what I really hoped was some serious attention to those quantum elements of large and small physical effects... Could I just calmly state I wasn't prepared? Or just tell her to stop by the 7-Eleven?

Damn! What if that's why she had been there that day? Maybe she was buying some for some reason or another.

I had a ton of theories. I hoped that one of them was right, anyway.

"As to why," she went on, continuing her answer to my almost-forgotten question, "I think it's because I like the way you think."

I swallowed back my surprise. "You, you do?"

"Yes." We reached a blue Mini Cooper parked under a wide-spreading shade tree. Ms. Swan – Isabella – stopped, caressing the low hood of the vehicle. "This could be difficult," she said. "You're so b- ...tall."

"Applied Physics," I said, waiting for her to unlock the door. "I can accommodate." My head was racing with stupid innuendos about "tight fits" and "that's what she said" and all that ridiculous, Freshman-level crap I heard around campus. I managed not to say anything else, though, that might have her leaving me here in the parking lot.

I did, too, once we got inside. I moved the seat back so that I wasn't smelling my own knees. It was much nicer to turn a little and smell _her_, instead.

"What is it?" she asked with a crooked smile as she maneuvered us out of the parking slot. The car had a manual transmission and hell yes, I was staring at her pale hands gripping the gear shift.

I swallowed, scrambling in my head to figure out what to say. "You like the way I think?"

"About physics. And applied adaptations. And Schrödinger's cat." Though angling from the lot to the road, she still winked at me. I leaned closer toward her. Couldn't help it. She sighed a little and her breath washed over me like a sweet temptation.

I had to be dreaming.

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><p><strong>AN: See you next week! Oh! I can provide you with a teaser if you wish. Just let me know in writing if you want one, so I don't spoil things for the unwary!**


	3. What is the superposition theorem?

A/N: My thanks to **Melolabel** for lending me another set of eyes at a critical juncture. ;-)

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><p><strong>Chapter Three: What is the superposition theorem?<strong>

"Superposition theorem," she murmured, turning to watch the road. "The behavior of matter and how a new element changes the parameters of that little hypothetical situation until you can't tell what really would have happened if it had been left alone."

I blinked. "Yeah. That." Was I an experiment? Were...were _we_? "So, do you think the cat would have died without the steel box being broken open? If an outcome cannot exist, theoretically, until a measurement has been made, is there an outcome?"

Yeah, I was getting into the theoretical physics of it. She grinned at me as she drove and my heart thudded again.

"What is it with you?" I wondered out loud. Because I had no filter when it came to her, as had been totally obvious.

She braked. Hard. "What?"

I checked and we were at a stop sign, but I was still bracing myself against the dashboard. "What the hell?"

Cool fingers gripped my hand for an instant before resuming their direction on the gear shift. "I – Can we talk about it at my place?"

I saw the long, smooth lines of her legs shift and bend as she hit the clutch and gas pedals. I think I whimpered. "Sure."

I heard her talking to herself. Or buzzing to herself. I think it was supersonic, how fast she was talking. But I knew she was and I watched her, completely caught up in how her lips moved.

What was it with her?

Since she was preoccupied and not kissing me or focusing on me, I could think a little.

Fact: _Her body temperature was not anywhere near mine. That is to say, it was colder than normal. At least on the surface._

Fact: _She smelled amazing._

Fact: _She kissed like – hell, better than a wet dream. _

I had had enough of them to know.

Fact: _She was graceful. I'd never seen her stumble or anything until she slammed on her brakes a few minutes before._

Fact: _She could speak faster than sound._

Fact: _She apparently avoided sunlight._

Fact: _Her skin was pale. Really pale. Like, nineties-goth pale._

Fact: _Her eyes demonstrated a strong recessive gene in the term of the gold part of brown overriding the darker shades so that her irises were golden._

Fact: _Her eyes darkened when she was aroused. _

_That_ fact started my body back into full alert and I was grateful to find out that Ms. Swan – Isabella – didn't live too far from campus and that we were apparently at her place.

_What kind of skin conditions require someone to avoid sunlight? Dean Koontz wrote about a guy, once..._

"I wish I knew what was going on behind those pretty eyes of yours," she whispered as we got out of her little Mini Cooper. She parked at the end of the covered spaces, next to a tree. _Yep, avoiding sunlight._..

"Just thinking. Theorizing, you know?"

She bit her lip as she reached for me, there under the maple tree. Cold fingers wove themselves through mine and I was entranced. She felt chilled, but amazing, even so. As if my skin had been seeking just that temperature forever. "You've been on my mind too, you know," she said softly, her tone caressing my ear.

I swallowed. "I, I have?"

"Yeah. Come with me?"

Oh, there was an innocent invitation in her words, but I saw that darkening in her eyes and knew what she was thinking. "I'll do my best," I managed to say, hoping I didn't sound as flagrantly ridiculous as I felt.

* * *

><p><em>This is ridiculous. Stupid.<em> I felt completely lame and inept.

And horny. But yeah.

Once inside her apartment – a place so nondescript it could have been used for a generic commercial – she seemed to relax. "So, here we are."

I glanced into her kitchen and found...nothing. No glasses on the counter. No coffee pot. Not even a dishtowel. It was as if the room were never used.

New fact: _Doesn't cook. _

Theory: _Doesn't eat at home._

"Yeah, here we are," I said as she turned to face me fully, her hands sliding up my arms. "Where can I put my stuff?"

"On the sofa. Here," she said, taking my backpack from me and tossing it behind her to the blue sofa. She probably got her furniture from IKEA. "So, where were we...?"

Stepping fully into my arms, she pressed herself against me. Where had we been? I couldn't even focus, not with that intoxicating fragrance that seemed to float straight up from her skin. I closed my arms around her and felt her hard, firm body creating an unbearable friction. One of her legs lifted up and –

"Edward..." she breathed. "I've been thinking about this ever since the 7-Eleven..." She slid her hands under my t-shirt and I shivered with need for her.

How had we reached her bedroom? Her closet doors were mirrored and I could see our reflection. "Ms., Isa, Isabella..." I wasn't sure what to do, seeing us reflected like we were. I saw large hands moving over a small back. Red hair hovering over brown. And perfection enveloped by a tall, lanky geek who had more bones than muscle.

Even if he did play a mean piano.

She moved to the bed, pulling me down with her, and I stopped comparing anything. My thoughts left all ideas of science behind. There was just...her.

"Isabella..." Her name came more easily against her skin. Her lips were not as cold anymore. Her fingers not so icy. I kissed her, heard her moan against me, and her skin just didn't matter. _She_ did.

"What?" she whispered, her voice sounding strained. "You...Edward...you..."

In moments, I saw her – all of her – and was totally overwhelmed. "You're perfect."

Her eyes were nearly black when I met them again with my own. That freaked me out where nothing else could have and I held completely still. Something inside my head was shouting at me to just stop. Just _think_. "What _is_ it with you?" I asked. I had to know.

"Superposition theorem is what it is with _you_," she countered, touching me below the waist with more intimacy than I had yet dared with her. "These _effects_? Only supposed to affect small atomic particles, but look...at..._you_..."

Sure enough, small things – her hands and lips – were affecting a larger and more complex structure...(1) I cupped her breasts – they were firm, _really_ firm, but pliable, too – in my hands and was transfixed while her nipples hardened before my eyes. I moved while she reclined, her hand warming up as it stroked me and her skin heating under my tongue. She. Tasted. Incredible.

Then, just before my brain stopped working, I blurted, "Condom!"

She moved quickly to the nightstand and brought out a foil package. Glad one of us was prepared. In mere moments, protection had been achieved.

Her thighs parted and, though her body was cooler and maybe harder than mine, I didn't. Even. Care.

* * *

><p>Exhausted, I felt myself smile lazily. Her body was warmer inside and out, and I wondered if that meant anything.<p>

Theory: _Sex seems to make Isabella Swan hot. _

I laughed at my stupid sense of humor, rousing the smooth-skinned woman on my chest.

Fact: _Her head is heavier than expected_.

"What's so funny?" she asked, her tone husky and her eyes back to the brilliant gold that reminded me of Rose's hair.

_Shit. Still gotta call Rose. Not now. That'd ruin the mood. _ I smoothed Isabella's hair. "Your skin is warmer than usual," I informed her. As if she didn't know. I was an idiot.

She moved from me at a speed I hadn't seen her use before. In less than a blink, she was off the bed, wrapped in the sheet, leaving me entirely naked. Her eyes were wide and staring and I wondered why. She was looking at my _face_.

"You have to go," she rasped, sounding frightened.

I put a pillow over my hips and shook my head. "No." I could be stubborn. "What is it with you? You're not...entirely...human, are you?"

Theory: _She might be an alien. Or a time traveler? _

"What makes you think that?" she snapped.

It was my turn to stare at her. And I had to smile. "Do you want a list?" I offered. I had the feeling this was a touchy subject for her.

Theory: _Maybe she was abducted by aliens as a child?_

"No. Yes. Okay?"

Keeping the pillow on my hips, I shifted and held out my hand. "I don't bite," I reminded her.

"No, but I do," she muttered. "Really, Edward –"

I rattled off the things I had noticed about her, and she kept staring at me, without deflecting any of my observations away. So I began with my theories.

When I got to the alien ones, she dropped her eyes before she started laughing. "Oh, that's good. No, I'm not an alien. Haven't been abducted." Then, the laughter died away as she brought my hand to her sheet-shielded breast. Her skin was cooling, but that wasn't it.

It was something so basic that I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before. Perhaps because no one like me would ever even think to look or listen. But. "You don't have a heartbeat." I freaked out and jerked my hand from hers, wincing when she didn't let me go fast enough. "What _are_ you?"

She lifted one hand apologetically, it seemed to me. "If I tell you, I have to kill you."

"I'm not laughing."

"I'm not joking."

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><p>AN: Of course there's a footnote. This is a NERDward story.

(1) h tt p: / / h2g2. com / dna / h2g2 / A1073945

One more chapter to go! This is, remember, just a bit of fun… I do have a teaser prepped and ready to go if you wish to peek into the final chapter!


	4. Physicists Prove Vampires Cannot Exist

**A/N: My thanks again to VampsHaveLaws for creating the banner upon which this story is based. Thanks, too, to everyone who took the time to read this little story. :) I've enjoyed hearing from you!**

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><p><strong>Chapter Four: Physicists Prove Vampires Cannot Exist<strong>

Fact: _No heartbeat constitutes a state of non-life. Death._

Theory: _She's a zombie._

No way. Those were gross and she wasn't falling apart. But even thinking it had me feeling a little sick to my stomach. Then her sheet slipped and I reassured myself that – whatever she was? – she _wasn't_ a _zombie_.

The whole lack-of-heartbeat notwithstanding, the sex had been mind-blowing. Not that she'd blown anything _else_, but yeah. And seeing her body again was totally distracting me.

Until my phone rang with Weird Al's signature theme: "White and Nerdy." Seriously. Men didn't come any more white and nerdy than Weird Al. Except, maybe, me. But Weird Al was totally cooler.

"It's my sister," I told Isabella.

A faint buzzing sound reached my ears and my TA grimaced. "_That's_ Dr. McCarty."

A hundred things flashed through my mind. "Wait. Hell. He's one of you. Whatever you are."

"Shut up, Edward!" she rasped. "You have no idea of the trouble –"

We scrambled, naked, to reach our phones and somehow my arm was around her waist and her hair brushed me with every move we made as we answered our respective callers.

"Rose, hi."

"What's the matter, Genius? Run off with Isabella? Talking about that cat thing?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, relieved that my big sister had given me an out without even knowing it. Telling her I had been sleeping with my TA might have been awkward, even if she was in favor of it. "We started talking after class and, you know, one thing led to another."

My sister snorted. I could hear her through the phone. "Yeah, well, one thing led to another over here, too. I happen to be in the office of Dr. Emmett McCarty. He seems to be short one Teaching Assistant. He told me this when I found out you were a lot later than normal, Little Bro, so I of course went to go find you. In case that cat-thing was fatal."

"I told you. Time kinda got away from us."

Next to me, Isabella leapt from the edge of the bed, her hair swirling around her, sending that amazing smell my way. I watched her move, pale limbs perfect, as she kept her back to me. The buzz of her conversation with Dr. McCarty proved that he was one of whatever she was, anyway.

"You're with him?" I asked my sister, suddenly wondering how she was. Did she think Dr. McCarty...smelled good? "I'll be embarrassed tomorrow, Rose, but are you okay?"

The weirdest thing happened. My big sister _giggled_. "_Okay_? Have you _seen_ your professor? If his TA is even half as hot, _I_ will cook dinner for a week."

I had to chuckle, then. It sounded as if Rose was cupping her hand over the phone. But if Dr. McCarty were like Ms. Swan? I bet he could hear her anyway. It was just a theory. "Twice as hot. I want steak." Then, I huffed a breath. "Rose...are you sure you're okay?"

"You aren't getting all the action, Edward. Your professor and I have a date."

"Great. My sister's gonna date my prof. We have to talk," I said before we disconnected .

_He's not human! _was what I _wanted_ to whisper into the phone.

Thinking that, all the factors clicked together in my head, almost physically. Almost loud. Almost, I expected to see Isabella snap her focus back to me as I figured it out.

Pale skin. Avoidance of sun. No conventional kitchen stuff. She had admitted to _biting_...?

No heartbeat.

"Vampire," I breathed, the syllables barely leaving my lips.

"No!" She buzzed into her phone and then threw it on her bed, where it slid under a pillow. "Edward, no. I mean, physics prove vampires don't exist. So, no." She didn't meet my eyes, however. She just turned and slid on her underwear. And though she was perfection in every possible way? I was thinking she was not entirely natural. "I – I don't go draining humans and I don't sleep in a coffin," she said, her voice a little too bright, I was thinking. "See?" she added, finally meeting my gaze and sweeping her arm around.

I caught my reflection in the mirror and blushed. Bending swiftly over, I pulled on my boxers and sat back on the bed. "You said you bite," I reminded her.

She bit her lip as she collapsed on the bed next to me. We sat and hitched our bodies around so that we were facing one another. I focused on getting an answer from her. "You said if you told me, you'd have to kill me." Somehow, that idea hit me more seriously now than it had before Rose told me she had a date with Dr. McCarty. Still, I didn't feel like I had to leave, either. "But I guessed, right?"

She winced, swallowed, and compressed her lips together. "You said vampire," she murmured, looking at my bony knee. "You really think I'm one of those?" Her eyes rose to meet mine, shiny and vulnerable. "Did I feel like that just now?" she asked, nodding at the pile of blankets on the bed, rumpled and smelling of the two of us.

"I've never had sex with a vampire before." Cocking my head, I added, "You didn't tell me to my face that you weren't, either."

She blinked and drew herself up a little. Still, her eyes shifted to land anywhere but on my face. "Edward... I'm not a vampire."

"You're a terrible liar, Ms. Swan."

I realized that I had lost a lot of my nervousness around her. I thought it was because the sexual tension had been cleared up, but also because she was suddenly as much a puzzle as a beautiful woman. Women were intimidating but puzzles demanded my respect and focus.

Isabella Swan compelled all of my attention, in every way.

"Edward..." She took my hand between hers. "I'd have to change you, if I were to tell you. And it hurts, a lot. I – I don't want to hurt you."

She wasn't lying; this much I could see. I nodded. "I'm not really into pain, you know? But what do you mean about changing me?"

Isabella slid one hand up my arm, coming to a smooth stop at my jaw, which she held while she studied my face. "I hear your heartbeat now. You won't have one, then. Your skin? It'll be like mine. And your eyes, Edward? They're so beautiful," she whispered. I lost the ability to breathe, for a second. Her sincerity was apparent and I'd never had anyone, ever, pay me this kind of attention. "Breathe," she suggested, her expression lightening a little as she smiled.

I shook my head, inadvertently dislodging her hand, and gulped in some air. "You said it would hurt? What happened to you?" I couldn't imagine her having to suffer.

Her smile, brief as it had been, was pressed away by her agitation. She pushed herself off the bed, went to the closet, and tossed on a blue dress. "Edward...I have to change you or kill you. You don't understand."

She was dead serious. I could see it and it scared me. "I – I should get home. I, I need to talk to my sister. She's got a date with Dr. McCarty and –"

Shaking her head, Isabella had her arms around me in less than a heartbeat. "No. I can't. It's the law. The Romanians – you don't know what they'll do to me...what they'll do to you..."

"Wait. Back up."

She told me, then. All of it. How she had been dancing at a USO party in Seattle during World War II. The lights went out and the dance was canceled and one of the enlisted men offered to walk her home.

"He was a real gentleman," she said, "but he was never available during the daytime. I figured he was on duty."

"How did a vampire get enlisted?"

She cringed at the word _vampire_, but answered. "He wasn't _really_ enlisted. He had been _hunting_, Edward. He took his last prey's uniform."

"Ouch."

After blowing out a breath that smelled just so _good_, she continued. Isabella and the vampire dated while he was "home on leave" and she remembered thinking how fit he was. "But times were more conservative, you know," she reminded me. They hadn't had sex, but they had spent a great deal of time together.

Too much time, as it turned out. She had figured out there was something about him. Isabella Swan had been a good science student, in high school.

"Two men, short but really intimidating, showed up while we were, uh, parked." She lifted her brow at me and I smirked. "They found out I knew what Randall was, you see, and took us both away."

While in Romania, Isabella told me, Randall was punished severely. She watched as he was dismembered and then burnt, limb by limb, his still-alert head forced to witness everything. "It was the very worst thing I had ever seen," she whispered.

I gathered her into my arms and we found a place for ourselves against the plain brown headboard of her bed. Something had shifted between us, in just the space of a few minutes. I could still see our reflection in the mirrored closet doors –

_Does she like having sex in front of a mirror? Would she want to with me? And hey, if she's a vampire, how come I can see her there, anyway? I guess Hollywood's got vampire stories as wrong as they do rocket science_.

– and all of a sudden, I went from being this nerdy but hopeful student in a state of constant TA-induced arousal to what looked like a guy who had his shit together. In response, I hugged her closer, ignoring the fact that her body wasn't comfortably embraceable.

"I'm really sorry," I murmured into Isabella's hair. "That must have been the worst thing."

She blew out a breath. "Almost. They told me they could kill me or make it so I lived forever." She leaned back, still in my lap, and met my eyes. "I was twenty-one. What do you think I'd pick?"

"I totally understand."

"No, but you will."

One of the Romanians, just at the time of Bella's change, was visited by a "daughter" of his – a woman named Sasha. "Stefan had sired Sasha a long time before, and they'd been lovers for a while before Sasha decided to make her own coven with only females."

My mind instantly flashed to a group of women that were hot and sexy like Ms. Swan and that ever-horny teenager tried to stand up and take notice. I swallowed and hoped _Isabella_ didn't notice. _Think zombies. Think dead pussy - - cats! No! Shut. Up._

"Sasha didn't have the same diet the others did, and when I found out, I asked her to show me how she hunted."

"What? Diet?"

She smiled and I felt her cool nose burrow into the hollow of my throat. "I don't drink human blood anymore. Only from animals. That's why my eyes are gold and not red." Her sigh was melancholy when she added, "I'll miss your green eyes."

My heart started to pound as I suddenly got it. She was going to make me like her. I felt myself try to hyperventilate. "Isabella..?"

"Tell me about your life," she said, moving in a blink to straddle me and press firmly against the headboard before ripping – literally – her clothes from her body with an ease that made me gasp. My eyes rolled back in my head a little and I couldn't seem to take in that that hot, _I have sex in front of mirrors_ look was in her eyes for _me_. "Tell me about your sister. Your parents." With a strange sort of delicacy, she ground down on me and rocked over my persistent hard-on. "I never should have let this happen to you, and I'm so sorry. But you'll be one hell of a physicist when you can go back to school. I bet we could do some amazing things together."

I groaned. Even in the face of possible maiming, it seemed my body wanted Isabella Swan. And I loved her mind. I captured her head in my hands and kissed her. I realized, then, that she had been very careful to make it so that her tongue went into my mouth. "Teeth?" I wondered.

"Sharp."

With a strange, poignant whimper, Isabella Swan tongued my throat and made a cool, scented path to my boxers. When we had sex that time, I watched her ride me in the mirror.

I watched her dark hair brush my thighs as she leaned back and cried out.

I watched her ass as she leaned forward, her speed scary but also fantastic as I came inside of her.

And then I watched, very carefully, as she apologized and bit my throat. My final human memory was the reflected image of our bodies joined in a way that had nothing and everything to do with super_position_.

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><p>Physicists may have been able to prove that vampires aren't possible (1), but I now know better. Tiny subatomic particles in Isabella's venom worked to change my basic physical properties in multiple ways.<p>

I didn't get it, the first time I saw myself in a mirror. Where I'd been tall and lanky and awkward-looking, I had changed. My skin was all cleared up, for one. My hair was kind of a bronze shade instead of the brownish-red it had been. I looked like I'd been working out with Dr. McCarty, too. But as Isabella told me would happen, my eyes were red at first. They became more gold eventually. I had become the kind of guy other people stared at, like I'd stared at Isabella.

I didn't get to see her for a while – too conspicuous to have Rose and Edward Cullen disappear at the same time as Dr. McCarty – Emmett – and his Teaching Assistant. Emmett called in an old friend of his, another "Southern Boy" like himself, named Jasper Whitlock. Jasper had taught countless new vampires how to adjust to the new life and new body. Bella came to visit and when I saw her –

Wow. I had thought she was sexy before? To an exponential factor of at least a thousand, with my sharp vision. Not only that, but when I held her for the first time, something sizzled inside of me. And inside of her, too, she said.

Jasper laughed and told us about being mates and suggested that Bella might want to take a sabbatical from the university for a while.

"Y'all are gonna be pretty busy," he drawled, wiggling his eyebrows.

"That's for sure!" called his mate, a tiny woman named Alice.

"I think I can handle that," Isabella murmured to me before she led me off to the room that had been loaned to me in this sprawling, hilly property in Appalachia. (Emmett and Jasper apparently had wealthy friends!) "I have a few things to teach my favorite student."

You know, they say that curiosity killed the cat. But with Schrödinger's cat? You can't tell for certain how the outcome went because to monitor the experiment precisely means ruining the parameters and, thus, the trial. So the cat cannot be proven dead without disrupting the experiment. It remains, theoretically, between life and death. Like me.

I have an idea that maybe, maybe physicists like me and Isabella might be able to figure it out without dying ourselves in the process. I like the idea of proving another theory.

The End

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><p>(1) <span>ht tp:  / io9. com / 52 412 52/ physicists- prove-that- vampires-could- not-exist

**A/N: Yes, one may imagine that Emmett changed Rose, too, and they will all exist happily ever after. After Emmett recovers from the fact that Rose rips off both his arms as soon as she realizes what he's done to her.**

**Thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with Nerdward and Ms. Swan. :) I had a great time with them!**

**~LJ**


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